20090121

I must confess I had the political equivalent of a quick but intense orgasm when I heard that sentence, to me the climax of an otherwise not-so-great but nonetheless perfectly powerful inaugural speech.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" celebrates the end of the Bush-Cheney era.

This "we" goes far beyond "We the People of the United States", which does already incompass a large spectrum of origins, colors, beliefs, non-beliefs... you name it, and did Barack name a few during his 18 mn speech !

This "we" includes human beings from "each nation, every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity".

The verb "reject" resonates strongly in such an inclusive speech and it should because it denounces our worst enemy, the one from within. When we forget who we are.

The Bush-Cheney equation was "false". This is not a moral judgement, "right" vs "wrong". And this is certainly not a religious statement about who is "good" and who is "evil". This is a clear definition of what mankind is all about.

At this defining moment, Barack Hussein Obama reminded us the true definition of freedom and democracy.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".

We reject as false the Bush-Cheney definitions of "freedom" and "democracy".

To add insult to injury, the Supreme Justice nominated by George W. Bush fumbled with the 35 words of the Constitution he was supposed to protect during that glorious inauguration. And of all words, he put "faithfully" in the false position.

President Obama later talked about things that were "true". One may question "patriotism" or other examples, but the word "true" has a more forgiving and subjective meaning. It is about loyalty to life, whatever or whomever you care for. Your ideals.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".

Obama's first decision is to close Guantanamo and put an end to Bush-Cheney's caricature of justice.

4 comments:

That's so true - I could have shed a tear. I know that the Beast never dies, but let's hope that Amerika will crawl into its lair and lick its wounds and leave America alone for the time being. Good luck president Obama, we're looking up to you, there is much to rebuild.

The truth is not always good and the good is not always true. I do not see what truth or falsehood has to do with anything. Is it good or bad? That is the question. What are the consequences of definitions? What are the consequences of our choices? The truth has nothing to do with goodness, in general, nor absolute goodness, in particular. Religion has proven, since its inception a gazillion years ago, that you can have goodness without truth. That, I think, is the lesson of religion, and we shall have to learn to embrace falsehood, because goodness, or at least the concept of goodness, our Ideal, is not bounded by the realities which threaten to confine us, and paralyze us, teaching us one lesson only: helplessness. Our Ideals are never true. That is what gives them their unlimited freedom. Truth, too often, as we know, is evil.

There is no such thing a one truth. We too often saw to which extremities it could lead a country.

Good and bad are moral judgement. Obama avoided this dangerous turf to denounce past abuses. He had to restore the very definitions of democracy, thus the YES / NO - style of vocabulary. It's not us-vs-them but them-vs-their own imposture.

Wikipedia has some interesing notes in this regard on the tree of knowledge of good and evil:

Rabbi David Fohrman ... states that "the tree did not give us moral awareness when we had none before. Rather, it transformed this awareness from one kind into another." After eating from the Tree, humanity's innate sense of moral awareness was transformed from concepts of true and false to concepts of good and evil. Genesis describes the tree as desirable (3:6), and our concepts of good and evil, unlike our concepts of true and false, also have an implicit measure of desire. (source)

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